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Russias economic woes, a likely weak rouble and a low price of oil
mean that it drops back from 8th position in 2013 to 10th in 2014 and
stays around that position to 2030
The latest edition of Cebr Globals World Economic League Table (WELT) for 2015 reveals some
interesting moves as the worlds richest powers jockey for position. Cebr Global is the international
economics consultancy arm of Cebr, the economics consultancy.
The World Economic League Table tracks the size of different economies across the globe and projects
changes over the next 10 years. We call the score on the current year and forecast future changes to
2030.
This year the main revisions reflect data changes the Chinese have revised their GDP figures to
measure their service sector more accurately and added an amount as large as the whole Malaysian
economy. This and some other revisions mean that China now overtakes the US to become the worlds
largest economy in 2025 rather than 2028 as we thought a year ago.
We also revise the oil price assumption though not by much since last year we had already revised
down our medium term forecast for the price of oil to $85. Because of greater energy efficiency and
improved supply this has been revised down slightly further to $75.
And of course currencies always behave with a mind of their own which means that whatever we predict,
something else will happen. Three years ago we expected a medium term value for the rouble around 36
to the dollar. Now we expect 50, with the currency having dropped to 80 last week!
The UK overtakes France (just) having revised our GDP figures to include earnings from drugs and
prostitution. The French figures do not include these industries (which may well be larger than their British
counterparts!).
Russias well known economic woes show it dropping to tenth place. The collapse in the Turkish Lira
th
th
brings it down from 17 to 19 place. Korea moves up a place as do Italy (surprisingly but only because
the Russian economy is in even worse trouble than the Italian economy!) India, the Netherlands, Belgium
(who swap places with Norway) and Austria. Argentina drops 3 places as its economy collapses.
the overtaking lane to become the worlds No 1 economy. India moves into a strong 4 place. Brazil
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moves into 6 position, splitting Germany and the UK (this report doesnt only revise the view of the future
the past is also revised and it now appears that our highlight of Brazil overtaking the UK in 2011, which
prompted the UK newspaper The Sun to append to its report on this on its page 2 a fetching picture of a
young lady on the Copacabana wearing a matching outfit to that of the lady on the opposite page, did not
actually happen!).
As globalisation reaches its mature phase in 2030, the worlds league settles down to a new ordering, with
China in first place and India in third. This is shown in Table 3.
This table also shows the UK overtaking Germany for the first time since 1954 (although if Scotland
breaks away, we calculate that this particular Il sorpasso will not happen until 2037). Of course, if
Germany left the euro, its currency strength would mean that the UK, even if Scotland were not to leave,
would be unlikely to overtake Germany until around 2050 by when the pressure of the UKs superior
The Global Prospects Report is a quarterly report every three months. The report is part of the prospects service
Cebrs macroeconomic advisory package for business.
Cebr Global is a leading independent commercial economics consultancy based in London. The report has been
co-authored by the Cebr staff whose details are below plus Osman Ismail who is unavailable on Boxing Day.
Charles Davis
Danae Kyriakopolou
Alastair Cavalla
Cebr.com
@Cebr_uk
Cebr Global
Unit 1, 4 Bath Street, London EC1V 9DX
Telephone 020 7324 2850 Fax 020 7324 2855